"by Labour in previous elections. The Labour Party is considered to be left of centre. It was initially formed as a means for the trade union movement to establish political representation for itself at Westminster. It only gained a ""socialist"" commitment with the original party constitution of 1918. That ""socialist"" element, the original Clause IV, was seen by its strongest advocates as a straightforward commitment to the ""common ownership"", or nationalisation, of the ""means of production, distribution and exchange"". Although about a third of British industry was taken into public ownership after the Second World War, and remained so until"
"present it to the party. This astonished many people, as the last time such a move had been taken (by Hugh Gaitskell in the late 1950s), it had been a failure. The new version was adopted at a Special Conference at Easter 1995 after a debate, and reads, in part: This version of Clause IV on the back of individual Labour Party membership cards today. Presentationally, the abandonment of the socialist principles of the original Clause IV represented a break with Labour's past and, specifically, a break with its 1983 Manifesto (dubbed ""the longest suicide note in history"", by Gerald"
"abandoned unpopular old positions, especially the nationalisation of certain industries, although this process was not completed until future Labour leader Tony Blair abandoned Clause IV from the party's manifesto in 1995. He stressed economic growth, which had a much broader appeal to the middle-class than the idea of redistributing wealth to benefit the poor. He accepted membership in the European Economic Community, whereas the party had pledged immediate withdrawal from it under Michael Foot. He discarded the rhetoric of class warfare. All this meant that Kinnock had made plenty of enemies on the left-wing of the party by the time"
"in 1985, but this was scrapped due to its unpopularity amongst both Labor and electorate. The party also desisted from other reforms, such as wholesale labour market deregulation (e.g. WorkChoices), the eventual GST, the privatization of Telstra and welfare reform including ""work for the dole"", which John Howard and the Liberal Party of Australia were to initiate after winning office in 1996. Various ideological beliefs were factionalized under reforms to the ALP under Gough Whitlam, resulting in what is now known as the Labor Left, who tend to favour a more interventionist economic policy, more authoritative top-down controls and some"
"reduced as a consequence of contemporary full employment, Keynesian management of the economy and reduced capitalist exploitation. In 1960, after the third successive defeat of his party in the 1959 General Election Hugh Gaitskell attempted to reformulate the original wording of Clause IV in the party's constitution, but proved unsuccessful. Some of the younger followers of Gaitskell, principally Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams left the Labour Party in 1981 to found the Social Democratic Party, but the central objective of the Gaitskellites was eventually achieved by Tony Blair in his successful attempt to rewrite Clause IV in 1995."
"party leader in 1992, but his death from heart attack in 1994 led the way for Tony Blair to become Labour leader. Blair brought the party closer to the political centre and abolished the party's Clause IV in their constitution, which had committed them to mass nationalisation of industry. Labour also reversed its policy on unilateral nuclear disarmament and the events of Black Wednesday allowed Labour to promise greater economic management under the Chancellorship of Gordon Brown. A manifesto, entitled New Labour, New Life For Britain was released in 1996 and outlined 5 key pledges: Disputes within the Conservative government"
"most high-profile aspect of which was a series of consultations with the public known as ""Labour Listens"" in the autumn of 1987. After Labour Listens, the party went on, in 1988, to produce a new statement of aims and values—meant to supplement and supplant the formulation of Clause IV of the party's constitution (though, crucially, this was not actually replaced until 1995 under the leadership of Tony Blair) and was closely modelled on Anthony Crosland's social-democratic thinking—emphasising equality rather than public ownership. At the same time, the Labour Party's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament was dropped, and reforms of Party"
"and became Leader of the Opposition. As is customary for the holder of that office, Blair was appointed a Privy Councillor. Blair announced at the end of his speech at the 1994 Labour Party conference that he intended to replace Clause IV of the party's constitution with a new statement of aims and values. This involved the deletion of the party's stated commitment to ""the common ownership of the means of production and exchange"", which was widely interpreted as referring to wholesale nationalisation. At a special conference in April 1995, the clause was replaced by a statement that the party"
"the 1980s, the right of the party were questioning the validity of expanding on this objective by the late 1950s. Influenced by Anthony Crosland's book, ""The Future of Socialism"" (1956), the circle around party leader Hugh Gaitskell felt that the commitment was no longer necessary. While an attempt to remove Clause IV from the party constitution in 1959 failed, Tony Blair, and the ""modernisers"" saw the issue as putting off potential voters, and were successful thirty-five years later, with only limited opposition from senior figures in the party. Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term ""socialism"" since 1992. The"
"deliver public services via the private finance initiative. Influential in these policies was the idea of a ""Third Way"" which called for a re-evalutation of welfare state policies. In 1995, the Labour Party re-defined its stance on socialism by re-wording Clause IV of its constitution, effectively rejecting socialism by removing all references to public, direct worker or municipal ownership of the means of production. The Labour Party stated: ""The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that, by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create, for each of"
"The new Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, completely abandoned the New Labour branding in 2010 after being elected, moving the party's political stance slightly further to the left. He resigned as leader in 2015, and was succeeded by Jeremy Corbyn at the September 2015 Labour Leadership election, who has further distanced the party from brand. During the 1997 campaign, a pledge card with five specific pledges was issued and detailed in the manifesto too. The pledges were: New Labour, New Life for Britain New Labour, New Life For Britain was a political manifesto published in 1996 by the"
"IV in 1995; effectively tearing up the constitution which had put socialist values and common ownership of industry at heart of party policy for nearly eighty years. Blair promoted the Labour Party as ""New Labour"", a social democratic centrist party for the 21st century which promised to inject new life into Britain; with investment in education made a key priority. Britain's wish to join the Common Market (as the European Economic Community was known in Britain) was first expressed in July 1961 by the Macmillan ministry, was negotiated by Edward Heath as Lord Privy Seal, but was vetoed in 1963"
"rising unemployment. After the brief stewardship of John Smith, Tony Blair was elected leader following Smith's sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994. He immediately decided to amend Clause IV, dropping Labour's commitment to public ownership of key industries and utilities, along with other socialist policies. Many members of the party were unhappy with the proposed changes and several unions considered using their block vote to kill the motion, but in the end their leaderships backed down and settled for a new clause declaring the Labour Party a ""democratic socialist party"". However, Labour had been ascendant in the"
"within the ruling Labour party, the membership of which had voted 2:1 in favour of withdrawal at a one-day party conference on 26 April 1975. Since the cabinet was split between strongly pro-European and strongly anti-European ministers, Harold Wilson suspended the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective responsibility and allowed ministers to publicly campaign on either side. Seven of the twenty-three members of the cabinet opposed EC membership and the party was formally neutral on the issue. The referendum which was non-binding was conducted in its entirety under the provisions of the Referendum Act 1975 as there was no prior procedure"
"like Livingstone represented ""the enemy"" of reform. Throughout 1995, Livingstone unsuccessfully fought Blair's attempts to remove Clause Four (promoting nationalised industry) from the Labour constitution, which he saw as a betrayal of the party's socialist roots. In 1996, he warned of the growing influence of spin doctors in the party, and called for Blair to sack Alastair Campbell after a High Court judge criticised him in a libel trial. Nevertheless, Blair's reforms led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, resulting in the formation of the first Labour government since 1979. In December 1997, Livingstone joined a"
"the Labour Party in July 1994 following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's leadership, the party abandoned many policies it had held for decades and embraced many of the measures enacted during Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister, including the Building Societies (deregulation) Act of 1986. In conjunction with Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown and Alastair Campbell, Blair created the New Labour ethos by embracing many aspects of Thatcherite beliefs into Labour as the ""Third Way"". The term is also used as shorthand by Ye. V. Ananyeva (""On Modern Ways of Reformism, or On Reformism as Modern Way"","
"the Labour Party's student wing (now Labour Students), which succeeded in ending its control by the Militant group in 1975. However, the attempt of the Clause Four group to oppose Militant in the Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) was a failure, and LPYS was eventually dissolved. The changing of Clause IV was seen by political commentators as the defining moment at which Old Labour became New Labour. Labour's ""Clause Four Moment"" has subsequently become a metaphor for any need or perceived need for a fundamental recasting of a political party's principles or attitudes. Accordingly, Conservatives such as Douglas Carswell (subsequently"
"the Labour Party had abandoned its socialist ideology and moved to the centre under the leadership of Tony Blair and won a large number of by-elections, eventually depriving Major's government of a parliamentary majority in December 1996. Major went on to lose the 1997 general election five months later, in one of the largest electoral defeats since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Major was succeeded by William Hague as Leader of the Conservative Party in June 1997. He went on to retire from active politics, leaving the House of Commons at the 2001 general election. In 1999, a BBC"
"political misjudgment"". Throughout the 1990s, ""Briefing"" lost supporters and influence as New Labour's hold over the Labour Party increased. Liz Davies was vetoed by Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Leeds North East in 1995 in part for her association with ""Briefing"". Corbyn called the decision of the NEC ""totally unacceptable"" at the time. In 1995 Central Books, a left-wing publisher which used to distribute the magazine, said: ""It used to be wacky and even amusing. Now it's neo-Trotskyite rubbish."" ""London Labour Briefing"" was renamed ""Labour Briefing"" and was then known as ""Labour Left Briefing"""
"the Labour Party through to its abolition in 1983. In 1983, two new constituencies were formed, Sheffield Hillsborough and Barnsley West and Penistone, both of which returned Labour MPs at every election they were fought. The 2010 result was that of a marginal Labour majority. In 2015, the Labour majority increased, partly due to a split right-wing vote between the Conservatives and UKIP, while the Liberal Democrats vote decline largely benefited Labour in the seat. When the UKIP vote declined in 2017, with a large amount of those voters going to the Conservatives causing a swing of almost 6% against"
"the Labour Party, which was heavily reliant upon union funding. Section 5 of the Act enjoined civil service unions from affiliation to the TUC and forbade them from having political objectives. The Act was particularly resented by the trade union movement and the Labour Party. Indeed, one Labour MP described it as ""a vindictive Act, and one of the most spiteful measures that was ever placed upon the Statute Book"". The second minority Labour government introduced a bill to repeal various provisions of the Act in 1931 which was not passed. The Act was eventually repealed by section 1 of"
"because it was a different system from those used in European and devolved parliaments, as well as the London Assembly. No action was taken to change the electoral system. Labour's manifesto in 1997 had stated its original position as: By 2001, following the Jenkins' Commission however, the Labour manifesto now stated: And in the 2005 manifesto, reference to the Jenkins Report itself (Jenkins had died in 2003) was dropped: In the 2010 manifesto, Labour promised a referendum on a pure AV system, which had been rejected by the Jenkins commission due to it not offering broad proportionality. (The Jenkins commission"
"Klerk decided to admit non-White members, however, a substantial number of members of the House of Representatives who had been members of Labour crossed the floor to join the Nationalists. In 1992, a group of 36 such former Labour members led by Jac Rabie engineered a vote of no confidence in Hendrickse's Labour government. Losing influence at the polls, Hendrickse concluded that the Labour Party had fulfilled its uses, and the party was disbanded in 1994, with Hendrickse and his followers joining the African National Congress. The name of the New Labour Party of Peter Marais was meant to evoke"
"Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, had contested the October 1974 general election with a commitment to renegotiate Britain's terms of membership of the EC and then hold a referendum on whether to remain in the EC on the new terms. All of the major political parties and the mainstream press supported continuing membership of the EC. However, there were significant divides within the ruling Labour Party; a 1975 one-day party conference voted by two to one in favour of withdrawal, and seven of the 23 cabinet ministers were opposed to EC membership, with Harold Wilson suspending the constitutional convention"
"and civil rights in a democratic framework of society. In the 1990s, the British Labour Party under Tony Blair enacted policies based on the free market economy to deliver public services via the private finance initiative. Influential in these policies was the idea of a ""Third Way"" which called for a re-evalutation of welfare state policies. In 1995, the Labour Party re-defined its stance on socialism by re-wording Clause IV of its constitution, effectively rejecting socialism by removing all references to public, direct worker or municipal ownership of the means of production. The Labour Party stated: ""The Labour Party is"
"2015, and that he was due to appear alongside Jeremy Corbyn at the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign in September 2015. In 1996, Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV – advocating nationalisation of key industries and utilities – from their constitution. He has contested two parliamentary elections. In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest. In the 2001 general election, he ran against Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool."
"union element and ended block voting by leaders of labour unions. Blair and the modernisers called for radical adjustment of Party goals by repealing ""Clause IV"", the historic commitment to nationalisation of industry. This was achieved in 1995. Black Wednesday in September 1992 damaged the Conservative government's reputation for economic competence, and by the end of that year Labour had a comfortable lead over the Tories in the opinion polls. Although the recession was declared over in April 1993 and a period of strong and sustained economic growth followed, coupled with a relatively swift fall in unemployment, the Labour lead"
"reforms, the party could not base its rule on defending only the workers and the peasants, which was officially referred to as the ""working class-peasant alliance"". In the constitution introduced in 1992, the State represented the ""workers, peasants and intellectuals"". In recent years, the party has stopped representing a specific class, but instead the ""interests of the entire people"", which includes entrepreneurs. The final class barrier was removed in 2006, when party members were allowed to engage in private activities. In the face of de-emphasising the role of Marxism–Leninism, the party has acquired a broader ideology, laying more emphasis on"
"and stood down at the 2005 general election. Sedgemore succeeded Ronald Brown, who had defected from Labour to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), as the member for Shoreditch. Initially, he was a member of the (now Socialist) Campaign Group, but he left the faction when he reversed his hostility to the (then) European Commission in the late 1980s. He was later one of only five Labour MPs to vote for the Third Reading of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, defying his party Whip, which was to abstain. On 6 February 1998 in a controversial speech at the Tate Gallery (now"
"Labour won the 1997 general election. When the new Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed the removal of the hereditary element in the House of Lords, Lord Cranborne negotiated a pact with the Labour government to retain a small number (later set at ninety-two) of hereditary peers for the interim period. For the sake of form this amendment was formally proposed by Lord Weatherill, Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. However, Lord Cranborne gave his party's approval without consulting the party leader, William Hague, who knew nothing and was embarrassed when Blair told him of it in the House of Commons. Hague"
"an independent MP) have argued that the Conservative Party must similarly undergo its ""Clause Four Moment"", rejecting past commitments and demonstrating, rhetorically at least, change to the electorate. For example, Nigel Farage has called the support for UKIP from Black and Asian British ethnic minority people as ""UKIP's Clause IV moment"". Clause IV Clause IV was part of the 1918 constitution of the Labour Party in Britain which set out the aims and values of the party. Before its revision in 1995, its application was the subject of considerable debate and dispute. The original version of Clause IV was drafted"
"2016). In 1979, the Labour Party professed a complete adherence to social democratic ideals and rejected the choice between a ""prosperous and efficient Britain"" and a ""caring and compassionate Britain"" (Labour Party, 1979: 23). Coherent with this position, the main commitment of the party was the reduction of economic inequality via the introduction of a wealth tax (Labour Party, 1979: 1). In the 1990s, this agenda drastically changed with the progressive dismissal of traditional social democratic ideology. In particular, New Labour de-emphasized the need to tackle economic inequality and instead focused its political strategy on the expansion of opportunities for"
"procedural, but essential. Calling on the slogan, ""One member, one vote"" Blair (with some help from Smith) defeated the union element and ended the block voting by which leaders of labour unions cast hundreds of thousands of votes on behalf of their members, and had an outsize voice in the party. Blair and the modernisers called for radical adjustment of Party goals by repealing ""Clause IV,"" the historic commitment to nationalisation of industry. That was achieved in 1995. John Smith died suddenly in 1994 of a heart attack. Blair defeated John Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the subsequent leadership election"